Biology
The biology of No Man’s Sky relates to its living organisms and their endemic ecology. Exclusions * Human characters are not known to be endemic in any of the biomes in this universe. * Neither are the game's NPCsNo Man's Sky: 21 Minutes of New Gameplay - IGN First (sentient aliens). * Character-resourcing flora are in a sense biology, but they are better covered alongside the other resources such as minerals (e.g. Silicon). * The game’s novel chemical resources are not related to endemic biochemistry, so they are not covered here. Creation All life is spawned initially by a process called Procedural Generation - a rules engine underlying the production of most natural features in the game. But it is not simply random, as TheSeaOfThySoul“What do you do in No Man’s Sky?” and other questions – Answered points out: “The rules of the game dictate how the world works... ecosystems are cohesive, and environments are structured as if hand designed, because they make sense within the rules crafted.” The game’s art director, Grant Duncan, told GameinformerA Look At No Man’s Sky’s Creature Features: ”When it came to creatures, we built the kind of creatures that exist on the Earth... and it's quite surprising how few different types of skeletons there are.” Gameinformer further notes, “Hello Games looked at these basic templates (i.e. skeletons) – which they call blueprints – as the basic foundational essence of their creatures.” TheSeaOfThySoul goes on to add that these blueprints, can be fed into this system, interacting with each rule before they end up as an animal or plant in an environment that suits them... As height changes, weight can change, the proportions the animal has can change, as this changes the animations can change, the bones can get bigger, thicker, and the voice can get deeper, etc. What is the environment like? What kind of creature is it? Where is it in the food chain? What will it prey on, what will prey on it? How will it interact with other creatures? As this blob is fed through the system you’re creating an animal that will make sense in the end, which even has behaviours, a male and female of the species, and variation among the species, for instance one might be a bit taller, have longer horns, etc. But that’s not the end of the story, as it appears that the ‘creators’ have broken some of the rules. By doing so, TheSeaOfThySoul carries on: “No Man’s Sky will make things more alien, or create unusual occurrences. As you journey closer to the centre of the galaxy, the game gets more unfamiliar and more difficult. It won’t be uncommon to be left wondering just what the hell you’re looking at – there’s a lot of things that No Man’s Sky can produce that even the developers can’t conceive of, they’ve stated that they’re surprised every day by unusual occurrences.“ Replacing the genetic code on Earth with this rules engine, what we are looking for in NMS biology is emergent phenomena – often quite unpredictable, and as we are already discovering, beautifully strange. But in addition to direct observation, there will be some intuitive clues to behaviour using what Grant Duncan has called a ‘tagging system’ involving colours, body parts or combinations. He went on to tell Gameinformer, “If you see a creature that looks aggressive and a little bit scary, chances are it's going to behave in that way.” Whilst Procedural Generation will start from scratch for any new visitor to a planet, the initial factors being fed into the algorithm should be identical, such that each character will see the same types of creatures and behaviours, if not the identical individuals (unless two characters are close enough to each other); indeed it appears that species extinctions are not possible. Research Resources Suit As well as survival functions for heat and cold (along with replenishment requirements and upgrade options), you can use your suit for moving both on solid ground and in liquids. Ship Your ship’s scanner is very powerful and can help you locate likely places on a planet, or even in your galaxy, to find life, which could otherwise only turn up on 1 in 10 planets you might visit randomlyThis is the most ambitious game in the universe, and be prolific in only 1 in 10 of those. A more advanced ship can also travel further enabling you to explore more NMS biology. Multi-tool At school, one experiment involved gradually poison a water flea for the purpose of learning about arthropod physiology. You might learn about some aspects of NMS Biology by using your weapon on wildlife – although good luck with the sentinels which are likely to start to hunt you down. Apparently though, the sentinels may be more forgiving if you are simply using your weapon in self defense whilst researching. More constructively, you can use different weapon configurations to scare creatures, both for self defense and to learn about behaviour (best if then used in a structured and proportionate way, as sentinels apparently don’t like to see ecosystems too stressed). The scanner function is vital and can be upgraded in the game. As TheSeaOfThySoul asks, “...find that you can’t scan a creature? Perhaps it’s too big for your scanner to recognise, perhaps your scanner won’t work in the dark, or underwater, etc.” Compass Learn to use this, and to use ‘keypoints’, so as not to get lost in your explorations. Beacons These are places where you can upload discoveries; do it regularly or you will lose any made if killed since the last upload. Encyclopaedia This is where you can find details of all the creatures you have come across. Money Discovering new species also earns you money – and nocturnal species earn more – which can be put to use upgrading your suit, multi-tool, and spaceship, each of which can then enable more advanced, safer, or more long distance research. Anatomy We’ve already seen a huge range, from horns and hooves, to skin colour, to wings and fins, all of which in due course need some kind of comparative analysis. Physiology Liquid medium Terrestrial We have already been presented with examplesNo Man's Sky - The Story, Gameplay, and Multiplayer Explained. Aquatic We have already been presented with examples. Semi-aquatic We have already been presented with examples. Nutrition Carnivores Before the game was released, we anticipated carnivorous energy derivation from both animals (including fishesAn Assortment Of Lesser-Known No Man's Sky Facts ) and plantsSpecial Edition Podcast: No Man's Sky . Herbivores Before the game was released, we anticipated herbivorous energy derivation, given multiple pre-release videos. Temperature Cryophiles Before the game was released, we had already seen footage including animals and vegetation living in temperatures below -163C. Thermophiles Before the game was released, we had already seen footage including animals and vegetation living in temperatures above 750CNo Man's Sky: A Tour of 5 Beautiful Planets. Pathology Trauma We know that animals can be killed, sometimes with an associated dying callNo Man's Sky: 6 Minutes of Exploration Gameplay – IGN First. Behaviour Aggression We have seen examples of aggression, passivity, and fleeingNo Man's Sky: 18 Minute Gameplay Demo - IGN First . Learning We have seen examples of evasion increasing amongst survivor animals after a killing. Groups We have seen examples of larger, smaller, tighter, and looser groups, as well as lone creatures. Reproduction We know that the creatures we see will be able to reproduce, but what that might entail we don't knowNo Man’s Sky: A Vast Game Crafted by Algorithms. Cave living We’ve seen troglobites (which live outside fluids). Crypsis This is the propensity for an organism to avoid detection. Nocturnality Apparently some creatures will only be visible at nightInformation Archive . Camouflage We’ve seen possible examples of this in the form of striping. Predation We have been told that planets range from those with none, to those with only predators. Domestication The fact that no taming or pets are possible suggests no domestication is. Evolution Whilst there are no indications that we can explore any planet’s paleontology, it does seem that animals will be able to breed and evolve. Classification We know that the discoverer of an animal will be able to name it, although it is not clear if this also applies to plants or other organisms. The fact that the default name displayed for the fish ICTALORIS IMENICU has two parts suggests a built-in low level classification system (it’s Earth corollary would be its Genus and Species labels). Indeed, ‘ICTALORIS’ is shown in an encyclopaedia entry with ‘Imenicu’ listed as a subsidiary and on another occasion, the fish ICTALORIS LIFORNI is seen. It will be interesting to see where evolution takes things, but the following higher level groupings seem concise enough so far: Ecology It appears that any given planet has only minor variations around a single biome, including prevailing weather. Hence, we might expect ecosystems to function at very large levels on any given plant (e.g. water, land, caves, and air), although exceptions are worth keeping an eye out for, and all liquids are not necessarily water. Food webs Carnivores We were made pre-aware of the existence of carnivores, both amongst animals and plants. References Category:Biology